{"id":274,"date":"2011-10-03T03:59:53","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T11:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=274"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"autumn-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/autumn-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Autumn Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUTUMN JOY
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Autumn Joy’ is a beautiful sedum, with big flattened heads of tiny pink flowers that darken to rose as the season progresses.\u00a0 Liking ‘Autumn Joy,’ the plant, is easy; maintaining an “autumn joy”\u009d state of mind is harder.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Autumn has much to recommend it–moderate temperatures, mellow light, and gardens that still have a bit of life left in them.\u00a0 At the end of the day, though, you know that horticulturally speaking, it’s the end of the day.\u00a0 The rose buds now swelling on the bushes will be the last ones until spring, and when the final chrysanthemums go, the growing season will be well and truly over.\u00a0 Bulb planting lies ahead, but does not provide any immediate gratification.\u00a0 Unless you are inspired by the vibrant green of the resurgent onion grass, there is less and less to look at other than the “bones”\u009d of your garden.\u00a0 Bones are lovely, but they don’t provide a lot of aesthetic nourishment.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is it possible to stay happy as the season wanes?\u00a0 It is an annual existential question faced by all gardeners, especially those of us without greenhouses.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My answer is to stay busy–and I do not mean busy sharpening tools and cleaning out the garage.\u00a0 Those tasks will come later, closer to the winter solstice, when the hope of spring is much more real.\u00a0 Right now I focus on life, specifically the remaining outdoor life.\u00a0 Some of it will soon be coming indoors; all of it needs attention.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This year the beginning of the end of the growing season was interrupted by Hurricane Irene.\u00a0 Our porch, home to roughly fifty pots of flowering annuals and tender perennials, had to be cleared in one afternoon before the storm.\u00a0 Some of the plants came into the house; the majority went to the garage.\u00a0 Most everything came out again within a few days, but some of the garage plants are still down in the driveway holding area, waiting to be hefted up the flight of stairs and returned to the back porch.\u00a0 A few suffered wear and tear in the rapid porch evacuation and some of the annuals are pretty much bloomed out.\u00a0 Since we might have at least four more weeks of bloom time, I am in the process of removing the dead and dying, consolidating the survivors and getting all the pots back where they should be.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have gotten a lot less sentimental about composting the dead and soon to expire.\u00a0 Looking at them does nothing to improve the autumnal mood.\u00a0 Besides, nothing lasts for ever–even Supertunias–and any plant that bloomed unstintingly from May through the end of August deserves a spot in plant heaven.\u00a0 It is amazing how liberating it is to stack up the empty pots.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My daughter’s geranium collection is thriving–so much so that almost every plant needs pruning.\u00a0 Giving all of them a good haircut provides me with cuttings that I can root.\u00a0 Eventually I will use the rooted cuttings to replace some of the older, woodier geranium specimens.\u00a0 Now that we use cheap, discreet, clip-on lamps to improve the lighting set-up in our indoor plant area–aka the dining room–I know that both young and old geraniums will come through the winter with green leaves and even a few blossoms.\u00a0 This is a good thing, because even though my daughter is hundreds of miles away in graduate school, there will be hell to pay if her favorite geraniums are not hale and hearty at Thanksgiving.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some stalwart annuals, like verbenas, the exuberant coleus and the rose form impatiens in the hanging baskets, are going strong despite hurricanes, monsoons and rough handling during the porch evacuation.\u00a0 I have been pinching, pruning and feeding them all summer and will give them one more good grooming session now.\u00a0 If you are going to keep a plant, you should make an effort to maintain its health and good looks.\u00a0 The verbenas look like pampered show horses, if I do say so myself.\u00a0 They can stand proudly next to the autumn mums that I add to the porch arrangement.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I may use the coleus to fill up some of the holes in the border.\u00a0 Barbering the careworn foliage of the once-blooming daylilies and iris has created plenty of room.\u00a0 Once the ubiquitous perilla mint has finished its run, the garden will be missing big patches of bronzy-purple foliage.\u00a0 The coleus won’t provide nearly as much impact, but will ease the impact in selected places.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The annual aging of the garden–from the young spring display to the fading fall array–seems to call for some of the same strategies as human aging.\u00a0 In spring, the garden is growing and changing so fast you can barely keep up and it looks pretty good no matter what you do or don’t do.\u00a0 In fall, everything takes more work.\u00a0 You deal with–but don’t dwell on–the losses, assess what is left and make the very best out of it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUTUMN JOY \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Autumn Joy’ is a beautiful sedum, with big flattened heads of tiny pink flowers that darken to rose as the season progresses.\u00a0 Liking ‘Autumn Joy,’ the plant, is easy; maintaining an “autumn joy”\u009d state of mind is harder. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Autumn has much to recommend it–moderate temperatures, mellow light, and gardens that still … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}